Bloody Rose
by kanna-chan94
Summary: There was one more mutant recruited into Division X: Esper, a mutant with the power to manipulate blood. Only problem? She doesn't trust easily and seems to be getting constant toothaches. POSSIBLE CHARLES/OC; STILL DECIDING


**A/N: kanna here with a new X-Men story...sort of. This was originally Ashabird's story, but when she put it up for adoption, I decided to adopt it.**

**kanna does not own anything. Not even the OC in the story. The only things kanna does own are whatever changes she decides to make to the story. Thank you Ashabird! Your story is in good hands!**

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><p>Esper loved the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City. Especially just before the sun started to set. There weren't a ton of people in the museum, but that didn't matter. Esper was about to leave anyway. Just after she looked at one last painting. It was one that they had added to their more permanent collection: Vincent Van Gogh's <em>The Starry Night<em>. It was one of Esper's favorites.

Her throat suddenly felt very dry when she arrived at the painting in question. Her veins suddenly became evident on her pale white skin. Her eyes flashed from brown to purple. She sighed as she felt a slight twinge in her bottom lip as her canine teeth slowly started to pierce it. She pulled out a red colored water bottle from her bag and took a long drink from it. The liquid went down her throat and the twinge in her bottom lip quickly went away. She smiled to herself as she put the lid back on her water bottle and wiped her upper lip with the back of her hand. Esper put away her water bottle and then pulled a white handkerchief from the pocket of her jacket and wiped her hand with it before she put the handkerchief back in her pocket.

Esper looked at the painting for a few minutes before she heard a man with a British accent ask, "You like this painting?" The voice was coming from behind her. She took a deep breath and could tell from the smell that the man had only just gotten to where he was and didn't see her wiping her hand with her handkerchief. She sighed to herself in relief.

She didn't take her eyes off of the painting when she replied, "It's a favorite of mine. It looks like the night sky used to before city pollution went and screwed everything up. The stars don't shine like they used to. The moon doesn't even have the same glow." Esper looked at her watch before she turned around to look at the man. He had blue eyes, white skin, brown hair, and looked like he was looking for something. "Something you're looking for?"

"Your name wouldn't happen to be Hesperia White, would it?" the man asked.

Esper was shocked. She had never seen this man until today. How did he know her name? She was intrigued. "My name is Hesperia White. However, I prefer to be called Esper, if that is all right with you. Why do you ask?"

"I know what you are."

Esper raised an eyebrow. That was a new one. "What am I?"

"A mutant." Mutant. That was a new word. Esper had been called a variety of things over the years. The list seemed endless. Being called a mutant was definitely something new. "I'm here representing a select group of very special people. People who-"

"No use." Charles's interest became piqued. He hadn't been interrupted that way before. Esper continued, "You're here to tell me you're after a guy named Shaw and that you want my help, right?"

"How did you know? Are you-"

"A telepath like you? Not at all. People talk. I heard there was a guy going around recruiting people with powers and that he was after a guy named Shaw. Just didn't think I'd actually meet the guy that they were talking about." Esper shrugged as she pushed her raven-colored hair behind her shoulders. "Do you want my help or not? The museum closes in a little bit, and I don't have all night."

Charles was slightly taken aback at Esper's knowledge of...well, pretty much everything. He didn't even have to do his whole speech about how he was recruiting mutants. Either word travelled faster than he realized, or there was something more to Esper than she was letting on. He let that slide for the time being and said, "Excellent. Just demonstrate your mutation and then we can leave. I really think you'll like the facility; it's quite-"

"I'll show you, but I can't do it in here. And I'm going to need a knife." Charles raised an eyebrow. "I'm really starting to lose my patience. Let's just go outside so I can show you what I can do and then we can be on our way." Charles sighed as he allowed Esper to lead him out of the museum. The two walked in silence to the back of the museum. No one came to the back of the museum, except for the garbage trucks, and they had already collected the trash. Charles stood across from Esper as she held out a hand. "Knife. Please."

"Why do you need a-"

"It doesn't even have to be a knife. Just give me something sharp. Even a piece of paper is fine. Something. Sharp. Now." Charles searched his pockets and found nothing sharp. He shook his head in apology and Esper looked around before she saw some broken glass nearby. She picked up a piece and proceeded to cut her finger with it. Blood came out and she thought of a whip. Her blood extended to the length of a whip from her finger and she was able to manipulate it with ease.

Charles looked at her wide-eyed. "Blood manipulation," he said in surprise.

Esper allowed the blood to return to her body and the wound healed on its own. She tossed the piece of glass aside. "Yeah. I can manipulate blood. I can use it to form solid objects. My senses are also greatly heightened."

"And you can form anything?"

"Pretty much. I can't create anything like guns, cars, or anything that's alive and functional."

"Doesn't it affect you medically?"

"No. I can bring the blood back into my body. Look, do you want my help or not?"

Charles nodded. He could see that he was asking too many questions. However, there was one thing that was bothering him: he couldn't read Esper's mind. It was like there wasn't anything to read at all. There wasn't even a wall around her mind that kept him out. There was nothing in her mind. It was strange. Charles had never seen a mind so...blank. It was strange.

Charles pushed the thought aside for the time being and walked Esper to the car that the CIA was nice enough to loan him. "Can we stop by my house?" Esper asked. "I have to pick up some things." Charles nodded as he and Esper got into the car and drove to Esper's house. It was a little over five minutes later when Esper came back with a small black duffel. "Let's go." The two drove in silence to CIA headquarters.

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><p>Upon arrival at CIA headquarters, Esper had been introduced to Erik; a holocaust survivor who was hell-bent on killing Shaw, even if it meant killing himself in the process. Erik had the ability to control metal. When Erik learned that Esper knew how to speak German and French, the two quickly began conversing over various topics in the two languages while Esper enjoyed Charles's confusion.<p>

Esper had also been introduced to CIA agent Moira MacTaggert, a human woman who worked with the CIA and had pretty good intel on Shaw. She quickly got on Esper's nerves with how stupid she could be at times. She also talked. A lot. She talked so much that her sentences all started to sound like one giant word made up of a bunch of smaller words. Not to mention she acted like she knew what she was talking about with regards to Shaw. If only Moira knew how naive she really was._  
><em>

Once all the mutants they were going to need - and get - to try to defeat Shaw were recruited, Charles and Erik left with Moira to work on the best way to get to Russia without attracting too much attention. The teenage mutants were not allowed on the mission to go to Russia, and since Charles didn't want to leave them alone, he asked Esper to keep an eye on them. She reluctantly agreed.

Esper hated teenagers with a burning passion. Granted, she had been one herself years ago. But these teenage mutants were just hard to be around. Since when did she become their babysitter? Aside from Esper, there were two girls; Angel, who could fly and spit acid, and Charles's sister, Raven, who could turn into any person at will. There were four guys, as well. There was Sean, a boy with supersonic screaming, Alex, who could shoot plasma rays out of his chest, Darwin, who could adapt to survive, and Hank, who had hands for feet. They were all in a room that some CIA agent referred to as a 'game room.'

While Esper wasn't the most social person out there, she figured she had to open up to these teenage brats somehow. So when everyone went around and showed off their powers and gave each other code names, Esper showed off as well, but did not take a code name. After all that, the teenagers decided to party. Was going up against Shaw a game to them?

There was no way that they'd be able to handle Shaw. If Esper had some help, there would be a possibility that she could take him down along with whatever help she had with her. However, she had no such help. Shaw was somewhere in Russia. Charles, Erik, and Moira were all discussing the best plan of attack. The teenage mutants had music _blaring_. Esper was ready to start screaming at all of them and tell them that they were being immature brats.

Instead, Esper walked over to the bookshelf on the far side of the room, grabbed a book, and went out to the courtyard to read. It was dark and the moon was hidden behind clouds, but Esper's enhanced eyesight made it easy to read the book. The teenage mutants turned the music up louder as Esper turned the page of the book she was reading. However, Esper's ears slowly became overwhelmed by the music. She slammed the book down where she was sitting, stood up, and walked back inside to yell at the teens to at least turn the music down.

A familiar smell poked at her nose when she took a breath and she smelled Charles, Erik, and Moira. She could also hear them coming closer despite how loud the music was. She heard someone - she thought it was Moira - yell, "What the hell?" from a few yards away. Esper sighed and rubbed the bridge of her nose in exasperation before she walked over to where she heard the voice. "What are you doing?" the voice yelled. It turned out to be the voice of the CIA agent that Esper didn't like. The teenage mutants froze. "Who destroyed the statue?"

Hank instantly ratted out Alex before Raven said, "No. Havok. We have to call him Havok. That's his name now. And we were thinking you should be Professor X," Raven pointed to Charles, "and you should be Magneto," Raven pointed to Erik.

Erik muttered something that Esper didn't really pay much attention to, Moira looked stunned and beyond angry, and Charles looked more than a little angry. "I expect more from you," Charles said. When he finally noticed Esper, he nearly jumped out of his skin. How could she be so quiet at sneaking up on people like that? Granted, he was in the middle of yelling at a bunch of teenagers, but even so. He gestured for her to walk with the three of them to a room.

"Is there something I can help you with?" Esper asked.

"We were looking for you because we need to talk," Moira explained. Esper shrugged as if telling Moira to continue. "There's a plane leaving for Russia in an hour. We've found exactly where he is, and we want you to come with us."

Esper laughed. Moira Mac-I-know-exactly-what-I'm-talking-about-Taggert had just done it again. Did Moira really think that they'd be able to take Shaw down by just traveling to Russia and politely asking him to stop what he was doing? Moira, Charles, and Erik were confused. "You're joking, right?" Esper asked once she stopped laughing. The serious expressions on their faces confirmed the answer to Esper's question. They definitely weren't joking. "You have no idea who you're dealing with. No fucking idea. None of you have a fucking clue. You may think you do, but believe me, you have no fucking idea."

"And I suppose you do?" Moira countered. Erik and Charles looked at Esper with eyes full of curiosity.

"Shaw did something I can never forgive. I've been doing more than my fair share of research on him. He's strategic. He won't leave anything to chance." Esper sighed. "I'm not going."

"Why the hell not?"

Charles sighed and put a hand on Moira's shoulder. She quickly shrugged it off and marched up to Esper. Esper's violet eyes flared at the sudden invasion of personal space. She wasn't one to get angry very easily. However, she didn't have the largest amount of patience in the world. While her patience didn't usually run out that quickly, Moira was somehow managing to make her patience run out faster than normal. Moira asked too many questions and acted like a complete and total know-it-all.

"You know, it's people like you who really make me long for my days back at the hospital," Esper growled. "At least at the hospital, I didn't have to deal with total idiots who acted like they knew what they were talking about when they really had no fucking clue. You want to go to Russia and get yourself killed? Fine. I won't be there to save your sorry ass. I'm not going anywhere near that sick fuck known as Shaw." With that, Esper angrily walked away.

Moira exchanged looks with Charles and Erik as they all wondered just what Shaw could have possibly done to her. How did Esper know so much about Shaw? Had she dealt with Shaw before? There was definitely something she was hiding. Charles didn't question what Esper's deal was out of respect, and given that he couldn't read Esper's mind, finding that information wasn't going to be easy. Moira walked away in exasperation and Erik followed her. Charles sighed to himself as he searched for Esper.

Surprisingly, Esper was exactly where she was before that whole incident with the teenage mutants. She was reading. Charles looked at her from a distance. It silent for a little bit. Esper didn't look up from her book when she said, "I know you're there, you know. I can smell you and hear you breathing."

Charles walked closer to Esper and sat down next to her. "I forgot that you have more powerful senses than the rest of us," Charles commented. Esper smirked as she continued reading. "Esper-"

"I don't want to talk about it."

"Do you even know what I'm going to ask you about?"

"It's pretty self-explanatory. You're going to ask me why I reacted the way I did, right?" Charles's silence confirmed Esper's answer. "Moira gets on my nerves. She's quite possibly one of the most annoying people I've ever met." Esper sighed as she closed her book and turned to face Charles. "I like to entertain the idea that I'm a pretty patient person. People like Moira make me run out of patience."

"Well, that answers part of my question. Do you know what I'm going to ask next?"

"I think so, but enlighten me." Esper felt her teeth start to pierce her lower lip. "Hurry it up. I think I have a toothache and I need to take some medicine."

Charles sighed. "Esper...what did Shaw do to you?"

Esper sighed as she stood up. "He took something from me. Something that can never be replaced or recovered."

"What did he take?" Esper began to walk away without an answer to Charles's question. "Esper!"

Esper stopped in her tracks when Charles called her name. She answered, "My humanity." After she answered, Esper continued to walk away and left Charles to his thoughts. What did she mean when she said that Shaw took her humanity? Why was she so cryptic? And why did it feel like he was getting more questions than answers from this girl?

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><p><strong>AN: Wow...I honestly thought I'd have this chapter go for a little bit longer, but I think that I like where it is. Second chappy is on the way! I won't say too much about it, other than we'll get an interesting little twist on Esper's power of blood manipulation. I won't say exactly what, but if you've seen Avatar: The Last Airbender (NOT THE M. NIGHT SHYAMALAN VERSION), then you should know what I'm talking about.**

**Again, I don't own _X-Men_ or Esper. _X-Men_ has their own legal rights that are owned by Marvel, and Esper was the creation of Ashabird. The only things I own are whatever changes I made to Asha's story and whatever OC's I throw in (assuming I throw some in here).**


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